


"Tell me again"

by LouisaPeters



Series: Prompts [3]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Flashbacks, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Trust, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-06
Updated: 2019-04-06
Packaged: 2020-01-05 22:03:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18374966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LouisaPeters/pseuds/LouisaPeters
Summary: During a rough night, Jyn reflects on her childhood and is there for Cassian.





	"Tell me again"

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TinCanTelephone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TinCanTelephone/gifts).



> TW: Talk of a parent’s suicide and death, nothing heavy or graphic, I just thought I’d say in case.

Jyn Erso didn’t dream. She knows she did before Saw, but after being taught her to sleep light and with a blaster, Jyn never dreamed. She couldn’t remember the last time she had a dream but she could remember the last dream she had.

Her mother used taught her to make flower crowns out of night blooming flowers as her father named the lightning bugs that flew by the house. Jyn would laugh at the names and run after them through green hills and farmland. She would lie on the grass with her mother and look at the stars. She wore the crowns braided in her hair and she would ask her mother if the crown meant she was a princess. Her mother smiled. 

“You don’t want to be a princess, little Stardust,” Lyra would say softly. “You’d hate that. Boring meetings and boring policy and boring people. No. You’ll be great, Jyn, but you won’t be a princess.” Jyn had bit her lip and looked up at her mother, with big green eyes. 

“But you’ll still make me crowns?” She asked. Her mother chuckled and smiled. Galen had come over to join them. 

“Of course,” Lyra had said and picked Jyn up in her arms. Jyn squealed. Galen caught her a bug. Lyra finished the braid and that night, Jyn dreamed. 

In the dream, all of the lightning bugs circled around her and when she turned around to show her mother and father, they were gone. The house was gone and she looked up for a starship, but those were gone too and all she could see for miles and miles and miles was the sky and the farmland. She didn’t remember feeling scared, she remembered feeling peaceful and Jyn supposed that it was good her last dream was happy. 

Cassian Andor did dream and he dreamt a lot, especially after Scarif and sometimes he would tell Jyn about those dreams, but more often than not, he would wake up in a cold sweat that reminded him of long nights on his home planet and he would stand under the cold of the refresher and let water drop down and then circle and dance in the drain. Jyn stood outside of the door to the refresher and she would knock quietly asking if there was anything she could do because it was better than lying in bed listening to Cassian hold back choked sobs from inside a locked door, she couldn’t open and she knew he would never open for her. 

Jyn woke up to gasping breaths and the sound of palms slapping against tile a year and two months after Scarif and she wasn’t worried because it was normal. A really messed up version of normal, but it was normal. She blinked sleep out of her eyes and pushed herself out of the bed. 

“Cassian?” Her voice got lost in the dark room and she pushed the heavy blankets off and walked over to the closed door, looking at the pinlock. “Cassian, do you need anything?” He pressed her ear to the door and listened. She could hear the water and a few strangled cried, but nothing else.It was par for the course and Jyn yawned and sunk down to her knees in front of the door. “I’m here if you do,” she whispered softly. “And we can sit here all night if you need too.” 

“Tell me again.” At first it washed out by the sound of water beating down on the ground, but after a few seconds of silence he spoke again.”Jyn, tell me that again.” Low and urgent in a tone Jyn didn’t think she’d ever heard from him before, even on nights worse than this. She straightened and moved closer to the door. 

“Tell you what again?” She whispered, scared that if she dared to make her voice louder, he’d stop talking. “That I’m here?” Something gnawed at her chest and she would have said anything to him at that point and it scared her. 

“No. That you’ll sit here all night,” he said. She nodded and perched up on her knees, moving closer to the door. 

“I’ll sit here all night if you want. We don’t ever have to open the door and you don’t have to come out. I can just sit here.” She lowered herself from her knees and crossed her legs. The water stopped and Jyn exhaled softly. The silence was thick and she longed to say something, to offer some kind of comfort, but she didn’t think she could. She’d never been good at being there for anyone. No one had ever been there for her and she didn’t think she knew how, but for Cassian, she was willing to try. 

“You’ll sit there all night.” His voice was thicker and Jyn frowned. 

“Cassian, what’s wrong?” She asked and pressed a palm to the door. “Is everything alright?” Now that the water was off, she could hear better and she tried to control her own thumping heart. There was no response and Jyn pushed out some air before speaking too fast and too sharp. “You’re scaring me, open the door, Cassian!” Her eyes darted up to the pinlock and she wondered if she could slice them , if it came to that. “You don’t have to talk to me but can you please just-”

“Fest is an ice planet but I was never cold there until my parents died.” His voice was hoarse and Jyn was pressed against the door now, she could feel the cold metal against her ear and Cassian’s voice seemed closer, like he’d stepped out of the refresher.

“What are you talking about?” She whispered. “Just open the door, Cassian, we’ll work this out, please.” 

“When my father was killed by Stormtroopers, my mother killed herself after. I was six.” Jyn knew he was an orphan and she knew that he’d been young joining the rebellion, but he’d never spoken to her about it and certainly not on a night like this. “My parents would always put me to bed and my mother would sing to me in Festian. The night my father died, my mother put me to bed. I asked her to stay with me,” Cassian gave a small awkward laugh and another choked sob. “It’s pathetic, but I was scared.”

“You were six, it’s not pathetic.” Jyn straightened her posture and shook her head. “Your father had just died. It’s not pathetic.” She clenched her fist and took a shaking breath. It was times like this she hated Draven for turning Cassian into this. Someone who could only afford to feel anything when he was alone, someone with training so ingrained in him that he would call a six year old who lost his father pathetic.

“My mother promised she would stay, but when I woke up, she’d taken one of my father’s lullaby pills. I was always cold after that. I was happy when the rebellion took me off planet. It wasn’t cold where they took me to train.” There was a pause. “You’re never cold, Jyn. You’re always warm.” 

Jyn took a shaking breath in. She closed her eyes and tried to think about what to say. She tried to think of things her parents had said, things Bodi would have said to her, or things she heard Chirrut whisper, she couldn’t make her tounge work though. She was shite at this and she hated herself for it so she just took another deep breath and pressed her hand to the door again. 

“I’ll sit here with you all night, Cassian,” she said softly before she could think about it or change her mind. The silence after was heavy and dense and and not comfortable at all and she felt her chest tighten and her mind race but before she could say anything else and start to ramble, the light on the pin pad blinks green and the door unlocked.

**Author's Note:**

> You can feel free to send me prompts on tumblr at thelostgalaxyinspace!


End file.
